5 Things To Remember If You Have Scored Lesser Than What You Had Anticipated In Competitive Exams

The CAT is finally out of the bag. Some of you might be jumping with joy while some of you will be cursing all those online score predictors. To the latter bunch, this is for you guys.

You just want to get into the sheets, order food in and stay there forever. You just want to get inside your sheet s to escape those annoying Aunties who keep poking their noses, friends who rub in their better scores, relatives who feel sorry for you and what not! Yes, take some time off, grab that tub of ice cream, watch that season of your favourite series, cry your hearts out and most importantly, GET UP! Yes, you heard me right. Do take some time to brood, but not more than a week. Here are 5 things you can tell yourselves and hopefully you will be up and ready to go.

Ask yourself “So what?” 5 times repeatedly: Start asking yourself “So what I didn’t score so well” and you will have an answer like I won’t be able to get into a b school of my choice this year. And ask yourself “So what you don’t get into a b-school of my choice” and so on. Continue asking yourself till 5 “So what”s. You will then know that you have unnecessarily brooding over spilt milk.

Competitive exams come and go every year: I am sure we have all had bad exam times in our UG days. Remember that end-term you did so badly. And look at yourself now. You’re all up and good to go. And that too you had only one shot at that end-term exam. Competitive exams come and go every single year! If not this year, next year for sure! So Smile!

Not the end of the world, REALLY!: Do you think an MBA is the only thing standing in your way towards happiness? DO you think an MBA can get you all the happiness in the world? Maybe it will get you happiness, but I am sure it is not the only thing. And all those who are successful and happy, is it that their MBA is making them happy? Go cheer up, because only in hard times do we actually start to realise the amount of happiness we get over the smallest of things.

You have a whole year to make your profile more attractive: We all think “Yaaay I made it into a premier b-school and am done! I can enjoy all I want”. But here is the real deal. Getting into a b-school is just a teeny-weeny part of it. You have to get through classes, assignments, projects, get a good internship, strive for a PPO, good grades, a job etc. Placements, especially summer internship is more about your profile. Landing a good job is equally as important as getting into a good B-School. You have 1 year now which you could make wonders to build your profile and probably prepare better and make it into a better B-School than your current target.

If you can’t survive this, probably you can never survive a b-school: Come to a b-school and you will have million more hurdles to face that can make you want to run away and just cry. I am not scaring you, but seriously. We are all in our 30s and trust me, we have not seen even 1/200th of the world. There are going to be obstacles all around our path. If you are going to let that one hurdle pull you down, then am sorry to say but you are never going to witness the dawn of your life. And take this as a test to see how you will cope up with your MBA life. You want to do well there right? So, buckle up now.

You may be thinking that it is always easier said than done. But life has given me my share of blows as well. So, I have been there, guys. Take these 5 points as your mantra and get set go, because so much more is in store for you! You never know, in a matter of 5 years you will probably look back and have a great laugh about all this. Trust me, life is more than what you think it is.

Swathika Selvam

Swathika is a computer science engineer from Coimbatore and currently, she is studying in IIM Indore. As part of the senior team of Merchand-I club (the Retail club of IIMI), one can often spot Swathika at their retail shop (a.k.a Pi-Shop), in the campus. With the passion for writing since young, Swathika has written and published a storybook titled “2 Meddlers” and hopes to publish more of her works in the coming years.

You have been there! With that feeling after a failure where you had to evaluate and change yourself for the better wishing you had someone to give you the ‘right’ advice. If you are there now, this article is for you. If not, be that someone and share the article with whoever is in need of advice. (There will be many after the recent exam results.)